The Craft of Fiction

One of the first things an amateur writer hears is the age-old adage, “Write what you know.” It’s a simple statement, suggested plainly, as if we have to take it at face value, but it’s an assertion that goes far beyond what we first take it to mean. For me,…

A friend of mine has undertaken the task of writing a novel in 100 days. May I simply say, Bravo. I say this in a very complimentary way, but because she’s writing a daily blog about it, it reminds me a little of “Julie and Julia”. I’m a little ashamed…

Most readers, at some point, have read a novel (or memoir, or short story, or autobiography etc.) and wondered how it was ever published. The fact of the matter is someone—usually an acquisitions editor—saw something of value in the writing. And while it can be discouraging for an amateur writer…

Those of you who have been fortunate enough to not know me personally may not know the extent of my nerdness (nerdosity? nerdity?—only a super-nerd would debate the proper noun form of the quality of a nerd.) The branches of my nerd interests range from Star Wars and Star Trek,…

My last post was about the first of two constants in fiction—tension. This post will focus on the second: Language. By that, I don’t simply mean English or Spanish or whatever language you choose to write in. Language is more a term that encompasses vocabulary, imagery, and figurative language. Though…

My Creative Writing students like to tease me. Every time we begin a new section, some new feature of writing as yet undiscussed by us, I begin by saying something like, “This is one of the most important aspects of fiction.” And while I maintain that setting, character, plot, etc….

Recently, I hit a bit of a writer’s block. This is not surprising for anyone who writes, but for whatever reason, I was shocked. I’d just finished up my young adult fantasy novel which, for the most part, told itself. But beginning a new project with new characters flummoxed me….

Over a decade ago, I sat in an Intermediate Fiction Creative Writing class at California State University of San Bernardino. My professor was critiquing one of my strongest stories I’d written to that point (at least, that’s how I felt about it). He was staring at the paper, flummoxed. I…

I don’t watch a lot of television, but one show I enjoyed was Monk. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it was an old detective show based around an OCD ex-cop with an incredible power of perception. A dead body would show up, the San Francisco police would call him in,…

Recently, we made a painful decision to part with a close family member: satellite television service. The good news is that we haven’t missed it. Instead, we reallocated our funds, partially, to season passes to Disneyland. There are several reasons why we chose to do this, but the primary reason…